


Prompt No.52: Fire

by Anythingtoasted



Series: 100Fics [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-24
Updated: 2012-04-24
Packaged: 2017-11-04 06:41:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anythingtoasted/pseuds/Anythingtoasted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Fire (No.52)<br/>Characters: Sirius Black, Remus Lupin<br/>Pairing: Remus/Sirius<br/>Era: Post-PoA<br/>In which Sirius lives in a cave and Remus gets frustrated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prompt No.52: Fire

Remus visits for the first time in mid-winter, when Sirius is stinking in a cave and not really up to pleasantries. His hair is white with snow from outside, but he smiles when he ducks his way into the low opening of where Sirius has chosen to live. Sirius is a dog when Remus enters and says hello as a dog, skittering around the werewolf’s feet in an almost ostentatious display of joy.

“Morning, Padfoot.” Remus’ forehead crinkles, looking down at the dog. “I was hoping we could have a conversation, actually.”

With visible reluctance, Sirius changes back. The figure he cuts as a human is not half as enthusiastic. “Morning.” He says quietly. His hair sits dark and lank across his face, and he’s in need of a shave. His shoulders hang almost permanently somewhere near his ears, his posture squat, crouching. Remus doesn’t mention it. There is debris in the cave, but there is the vague outline of a home there, too; a couple of baleful chairs, little more than stools really, stand in the corner, and Sirius has stacked blankets against the back wall, presumably for him to sleep on as Padfoot. Remus hopes, anyway, that he doesn’t sleep there in human form – but who knows?

 He stands awkwardly in the middle of the ‘room’. Sirius watches him in silence. Remus coughs. “…How are you?”

Sirius grunts in response, shrugging. He evades Remus’ eyes. Gone is the affection, that knee-jerk reaction of their reunion. Replacing it is a dog with its hackles raised, fur or not. Remus cheerfully ignores it as best he can, and uses one hand to shake the snow out of his greying hair. “I brought you supplies. Whatever I could shrink.” He has with him a carpet-bag, not the most masculine bit of kit in the world, but it was what worked; and inside there is food, and a small stove, tinder and kindling and small pieces of wood. Sirius eyes it suspiciously, as if Remus is pulling from the bag explosives, or mangled limbs. The werewolf keeps one eye on him in peripheral vision. “I can set the stove up, if you like? Just for you to have some hot food. What have you been eating?”

“Bits and pieces.” Sirius says shortly. “You can put it over there.” He adds, nodding at one of the cave walls. Despite himself, Remus is riled by his cold reception.

“ _Alright_.” He puts the stove in place and grows it to normal size with his wand. “Do you know how to use it?”

“I’ll work it out.” Voice stony, he looks petulant, still refusing any kind of eye-contact. Remus wasn’t sure he’d looked at his face since he arrived.

“I’ll set it up anyway. Just in case I can’t come back for awhile. Where shall I put the food?”

“Anywhere.” This is strange. Almost a role-reversal; Remus has always been content in silence. Not stark and ornery like Sirius seemed to be insisting on but at very least sometimes cold in his standoffishness. He felt ruefully that he was being punished, somehow.

“You know,” he says as he kneels in front of the little cast-iron stove and opens the grate, “usually when two people have a conversation, both of them contribute. Not that I’m criticising.”

Another grunt. Sirius stood towards the entrance still, leaning on the wall with his arms loosely folded, his posture still horrendous.

“I’m just saying,” he muttered  _incendio_ at the small pile of kindling he’d placed in the grate, and continued to talk to Sirius in a loud, prefectly voice he hadn’t used in a long while. “That  _usually_ -“

“Leave off, Moony.” There is threat in his voice. Sirius stands cold in the corner, even as the fire starts to burn. Remus can feel its heat and light on his face when he turns to face the other man.

“You don’t half know how to make a bloke feel welcome.”

“Honestly. Leave off. I’m not in the mood.”

“Clearly.” Remus stands, emptying the rest of the contents of his carpet bag onto the floor one-by-one, but with a kind of offended brusqueness. He stands. “I’ll go, then, shall I?”

Sirius looks at him darkly and moves aside for him to go, but Remus doesn’t move.

“When did you last eat?” He has a voice like Sirius’ mother, sometimes. “When did you last eat a  _meal?_ ”

“I don’t know.”

“So you’re moping because I’m alleviating your misery?” 

“I’m  _moping_  because I’m not in the mood to entertain.” 

Remus feels as if someone here has to be an adult, and true to form, it might as well be him. “Sirius.” He almost laughs at how ridiculous this is – it’s like he’s a ministry official, rather than Sirius’ oldest living friend. He shrugs in his long brown coat, shivering slightly, and pulls it around himself better. They stand feet apart, and it is strange. “Since when did I expect  _entertainment_?”

Sirius shrugs and looks at his feet. He is not embarrassed, per se, but something close to it. Remus actually does laugh, now, at the absurdity of it all. He hasn’t had a conversation like this since he was a teenager, standing in the corner himself, being deliberately obtuse. He crosses the room and wraps both arms around Sirius’ unyielding shoulders, squeezing him like he did in the shack, before. He laughs into the other man’s shoulder, voice muffled against Sirius’ heavy, ragged coat. “You haven’t changed at all.” He laughs again, almost in relief. “Not one bit.” He can detect that scent which is uniquely  _Siriuslike_  with only a touch of difference – the same doggish, animal smell he has always carried. Wood-smoke, even though there hasn’t been a fire until now. Dirt and grass.

He lets Sirius go and locks eyes with him finally, the same thankful smile playing on his lips. Sirius makes no similar motion, but his eyes are on Remus’, at least. As the werewolf turns to duck out of the cave he says, “I’ll see you soon.”, and quietly, as if he doesn’t want to be heard, Sirius says “Alright” back. 


End file.
